1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a copier, facsimile apparatus, printer or similar image forming apparatus and more particularly to a device for removing substances that disfigure an image and an image forming apparatus using the same.
2. Description of the Background Art
Generally, an image forming apparatus includes a charging device for charging an image carrier by discharge during image formation. Products resulting from the discharge deposit on the surface of the image carrier. When the amount of the products increases, the products absorb water in the air in a humid environment and decreases in resistance to thereby lower the resistance of the surface of the image carrier. As a result, an image formed on the image carrier is sometimes blurred, partly lost or otherwise disfigured. This problem will be solved if the image carrier is provided with a surface easy to wear and if a cleaning blade or similar member is pressed against the image carrier for shaving off the surface by a relatively great amount together with the disfiguring products deposited thereon. Such a scheme, however, reduces the life of the image carrier.
A device for removing the disfiguring substances from the image carrier while maintaining the expected life of the image carrier has been proposed in various forms in the past. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 60-49352, for example, discloses a disfiguring substance removing device including a water applying member for applying water to the surface of the image carrier and a water removing member for removing the former from the latter. This device is configured to effectively remove disfiguring substances by paying attention to the fact that the substances are water-soluble.
However, the surface of the image carrier is generally hydrophobic and causes water applied thereto to form scattered drops. It follows that even if the disfiguring substances dissolve in water on the surface of the image carrier, the aqueous solution containing the substances sparsely deposit on the surface in the form of drops. When such drops sparsely distributed on the surface of the image carrier are wiped off, the removing effect differs from portions where the drops are present to portions where they are absent. The resulting surface characteristic of the image carrier is apt to be irregular.
Technologies relating to the present invention are also disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 8-248820, 9-305083 and 2001-22140.